>> tonight what you were not taught about history. i would have thought that union leaders. >> the middle class would not be where it is today. >> my guests say it's not true. the rise to power came at the expense of the groups, particularly african-americans, i'm told that political campaigns are worse than ever. >> they can take it to a new level. >> don't watch stossel. is this new? you should hear what the founders said about each other. >> if thomas jefferson wins, murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practice.

>> and told that ronald reagan up to the cold war. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall! but the historians say this did more to end the cold war. >> finally, we're all thought that politics changed history, but larry flynn historians say that politicians, as important. >> that's our show tonight. >> and now, john stossel. >> what built the middle class? unions, i'm told, but union leaders often tell me when i confront them about bad things that unions do, we built the middle class they say. here is the head of

wisconsin's firefighters union. the middle class would not be where it is today without the unions. >> the unions claim they helped minorities. a sample of my interview with the head of new york city's 3400 member transit union. >> you discount the extremely positive impact that the trade union has had in this country launching people into the middle class, particularly african-americans and latinos, but that's just not true say tom woods and damon root. woods is the author of "33 questions about american history you're not supposed to ask" damon root writes for reason magazine. both have studied history and shocked how much of what they learned in school turned out to be wrong, like what? >> well, the union question for one. and what do we get on unions other than propaganda and i think that-- >> they raised us up with all of the rules.

>> if the human mythology were correct humans wouldn't turn out. 1900, raises and unions can't take credit for this. americans got the eight hour day much sooner than unionized counterparts in europe did, so-- >> unions say they got the eight hour day only because of unions. >> this is not correct and when we talk with work place safety. i think of my father's case, he was a teamster and drove a forklift for 15 years and imagine if he had to stack pallets with his bare hands, how much could they have paid him, 1.50? because of saving and investment and equipment that makes my father more productive and makes it plausible that he could earn a decent living. >> you're saying that union rules may have prevented the

introduction of the forklift. >> through feather bedding and others that union would have favored would have prevented this healthy outcome from occurring. >> unions say they made the work place safer. >> one of the things they also say, they've been unally force for today. in fact, if you look at actual heft of organized labor, their success, rise to power came at the expense of disadvantaged groups particularly african-american as as you mentioned in the beginning. the magna carta of labor, for bid unions from discriminating against black members and that was taken out at the insistence of the american federation of labor. >> and the afl's president in support of the bill, labor is sought to demoralize wage

waits. >> they pushed for something called the davis-bacon act. >> we're still stuck with. >> stuck with today. >> in response to long islands, veterans hospital being built and a the contractor brought in a group of black construction workers from the south, the unions said this was colored labor, depressing the white man's wage. they went to governor bacon in new york and got this passed, it's a pre valing wage. if you're a black worker, the unions wouldn't let you in, you could compete or work or a low wage and that's what many african-americans did at the time and davis-bacon goes into effect and it's illegal for them to compete against organized labor on projects. >> it's a safer workplace, that's sound superficially plausible. don't want steel heads on your beams, couldn't care less, but the long and short of it is,

if we were to introduce american safety standards into bangladesh right now, would that turn bangladesh into utopia or-- say the unions. >> no one would be working, sitting in their huts doing nothing. it shows there is a limit to workplace safety and that limit is the wealth of the society. and as the society becomes wealthier, as we invest in more capital equipment. as the workers become more productive and their wages increase, they can begin to opt for taking some of that increased wage in the form of workplaces. as we've seen government tries to take credit for all of these advances, without that we would all be in bangladesh. >> a good example, osha. the head of osha under president clinton was fond of holding up a chart showing that workplace injuries stopped since osha began and then somebody charted it before osha and found it was dropping at the same rate, the

slope of the line is the same. things get better because of free markets. >> right, and they create more wealth and make it possible for us to opt for safer workplace environments. most workplace injuries are caused by people getting in traffic fatalities on the highways or another worker punches you in the face. it's not what most people think, you're sitting there and your leg is caught in the grinder and sausage is made out of some guy's leg, not what most are caused by. >> i'm glad it hear that, because i like sausage. and fdr's new deal. caused the depression some people think that, he had the programs and lifted us up. >> i don't blame them for thinking that, the propaganda shoved down their throats 24 hours a day. present company excepted. henry morgan thal said in 1939 after he'd seen the

unemployment at about 20%, said, well, we've done everything the experts told. >> we have tried spending money. spent more than we've ever spent before and it does not work. >> so it turns out that we still get double digit unemployment during the 30's and numerous years, net capital investment is negative. we've got what's called regime uncertainty because a lot of businessmen wonder with an administration like this, i don't want to risk my capital right now so i'm going to hold back from investing. we've got this, this-- >> are you talking roosevelt or obama now? >> see, there you go. 'cause that's the real parallel here. yet today fdr gets the credit for solving the depression? >> it's astonishing he would get this credit and record as i said with his own people, pointing out it's about and failure, what more would it require for us to concede this? >> let's move on to, you ma i had a comment about hoover did nothing and then roosevelt saved us. hoover didn't do nothing.

hoover increased spending. hoover is the opposite of las fair. >> and the hoover dam completed under fdr and started under hoover and bailouts to banks and government projects. >> we have a graph of spending under hoover and after hoover and would have been flat before the years of hoover, he comes to power, that's the yellow, increases spending 50%. >> the idea that he's laz say fair is absurd. >> it's a stimulus project and done under him, the hoover dam. and even today, it's still celebrated by advocates of big spending as an example of the wonderful things government should do. >> the project of national significance, we've got the projects on the menu right now and we've got to figure

whether or not we're still a country that can think this big. >> and i think they are winning in the marketplace of idea, advocates of big spending. most people think economies won't take care of themselves, government has to control them. >> and yet, here we have the greatest examples of the opposite. with the great depression and the current situation, for somebody to think that this was caused by the free market when you have fannie and freddie with the regulations and federal reserve pumping the system with cheap credit. interest only and have no job. you know, that's not the free market at work, that's crony capitalism at its worst. >> thank you, tom woods, damon root. election season is underway and so now we're going to get those ugly, nasty campaign ads. worse than ever i'm told, but that's a myth, too. want to see a really nasty

campai campaign, mud slipping? >> if thomas jefferson wins, murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced. hi, anne. how are you doing? hi, evelyn. i know it's been a difficult time since your mom passed away. yeah. i miss her a lot, but i'm okay. wow. that was fast. this is the check i've been waiting for. mom had a guaranteed acceptance life insurance policy through the colonial penn program, and this will really help with the cost of her final expenses. they have been so helpful and supportive during this time. maybe i should give them a call.

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that we've ever seen. >> i think it's absolutely true and i think it's going to be a real mud slinging mess. >> mud slinging, that phrase comes from the saying throw plenty of dirt and some will stick, which it probably will, and i have to be honest that i only started really paying attention to politics maybe 20 years ago, but during every election for those 20 years i've heard politicians and pundits complain about how mean this campaign is and they claim politics is now dirtier and meaner than ever. . >> this could be the nastiest, most negative election season of all time. >> this campaign season seems like candidates have taken dirty to a whole new level. >> when start shouting and politicians start calling each other names, it would seem like a return to civility is know the possible. >> john: a return to civility. apparently civility is what people assumed use today govern campaigns.

but that's nonsense. if they read history they know that politicians have always said horrible things about each other. thomas jefferson and john adams didn't have television, but what if they did? >> john adams is a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who wants to start a war with friends. while he's not busy importing mistresses from europe, he's trying to mary i one of his sons to a daughter of king george. haven't we had enough monarchy in america? >> if thomas jefferson wins, murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced. are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames? female chastity violated, children rising in a pipe. >> using that video, using actual statement made them. the editor in chief is nick gillespie, you made that because you were sick of hearing how much worse everything is now.

>> yeah, every political election seems to be worse than the previous one. that's what we hear. when you crack a history book you find out it's prech status quo. >> covering your jackson, andrew jackson against john quincy adams. >> there were hand bills that accused jackson of massacring indians. indians. >> it on the flip side. adams was accused pimping out to the ambassador of russia. >> and glover cleveland runs for president. >> of course, grover cleveland didn't run for anything. he shambled slowly if you'd seen his size. he had an out of wedlock child and that became an issue, hey, ma, where is pa? and after he won the election,

proponents went to the white house. >> he was a bachelor and admitted he might have fathered this child out of wedlock and he paid for the child. >> that's right. >> and the public apparently accepted that. >> 80 years later. lyndon johnson running against barry goldwater? >> yeah, this is the classic of modern negative campaign ad. the daisy ad. the girl picking flowers. >> john: starts innocently enough. >> and it's going to start a countdown for a nuclear bomb being dropped and implication is that barry goldwater was a mad bomber. a magazine called fact wrote a name claim being he was insane. >> and it was talked about so much, it had impact. >> these are the stakes to

make a world in which all of god's children can live, or to go into the dark. >> we must either love each other or we must die. >> there was a ton of stuff slung at barry goldwater, that he was a fascist, that he was a member of the john bird society which he was not, that he was like hitler or stalin according to some psychiatrists who kind of psycho analyzed him from a distance and he won a defamation suit against the fact magazine. >> we have a cover of the magazine that made the claims by the psychiatrists and he sued and they had made it up? >> yes, but that has not gone away, but the tactful fact is that many have positive attributes about them. >> like? >> john gear studied political ads from 1960 to 2004 and

found that in negative ads, three quarters attack statements of fact and policy that candidates had. so actually the negative ads are where you see the engagement with the issues and ideas of competing political ideology. >> instead of the fluffy, isn't he a wonderful father, family man ads you get facts and they reply with facts. >> that's right. so everybody really benefits from that and might say it's uncomfortable, but negative ads or negative campaigns often correlate with higher voter turnout. >> john: they say this will turn people off to politics. >> theres' really no evidence to that. >> john: it may interest people, more people turn out after the negative ads. >> that's exactly what happened in 2004, when john kerry versus george w. bush in his reelection bid, a nasty and dirty campaign with swift boats and questions of shirking duties op bush's part on the air national guard, it actually increased voter turnout from 2000 which was a hotly contested election.

and to call it negativity is wrong it's about information and people arguing over something very important. >> john: thank you, nick gillespie. the reason foundation. it makes me wonder, what would it be like if my critics made attack ads about this program and me? >> don't watch stossel. he's nothing, but a hack, a shill. he wants to do requests. this ad has been approved by the mainstream media. staying active can actually ease arthritis sympms. but if you have arthris, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function

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>> what is it that lib rates oppressed people? i was taught it's often american power. during world war ii our military defeated the nazis, liberated europe, rescued people from concentration camps. 45 years later the threat of our military buildup defeated the soviet union and now our troops in the middle east will help create islands of freedom. no says historian thaddeus russell, i have it wrong. so, how do i have it wrong? >> well, as a matter of fact in general, american military intervention has increased anti-americanism and hardened

repressive regimes. american popular culture, often called the worst of our culture has done more for our liberation and national security than anything the airborne could do. >> john: let's talk about the soviet union. the reagan military buildup. they spent so much they collapsed. >> they collapsed from within, didn't collapse from outside, there was never an invasion, what happened in the soviet union and eastern block, people walked away from the ideology of commune inch and that began especially when american popular culture, jazz and rock and roll infiltrated those countries after world war ii. >> john: evidence? >> evidence? american soldiers brought jazz during world war ii to the eastern front. soviet soldiers brought it back and eastern european brought it and spread it across those countries and all offer the soviet unions and eastern europe you saw the kids on streets known as the

steel-yaki in the soviet union, other names in east germany, wore jeans and duck-tail hair dos, loved to dance and smoke cigarettes. >> stalin called it the bourgeoise inception from the west. >> and popular culture subverts repressionist regimes. they were hysterical about it. >> john: arresting them. >> round them up on the streets and sent them to prison, made jazz illegal, and playing jazz illegal, playing the drums in sensual ways illegal. >> john: because it was too sensual? because any regime depends on social order, any to maintain its power and social order and sensuality the pleasures of the boyd are at odds and stalin and commissars understood that.

>> john: excessive movements of the hips, arms and legs. >> exactly what people were saying in the united states about jazz 20, 30 years earlier. jazz, people don't know this, in the 20's and 30's, was attacked as jungle music bringing down american youth. and stalin and commissars were saying the exact same things with the same words. >> john: and rock and roll. >> was more threatening. more popular than jazz. by the 1980's disco and rock in the 1980's were enormously popular throughout the communist world. >> john: they felt they had to relax the rules because they were losing. >> by the the '80s, it was too late and once gorbachev comes into power and sees glasnost, if he tried this he would lose and western acts came in and took off from there. >> john: and they left the acts in, it was surprising, bruce springsteen went to east germany and drew a huge crowd.

we have a clip of him singing, born in the usa. ♪ >> and in east germany, this is pretty remarkable because so many people were there and they're singing along to born in the usa. they weren't allowed in the usa. >> that's right. that's right, this is great evidence of the enormous popularity. this signaled the end of the communist regime. >> john: all right. he can see how the music had a big effect, but i would think a bigger effect would just be raw consumerism, the choice, they wanted the stuff we had, the phones, bikes, cars. >> i actually was in the soviet union in 1986 and when i walked into red square in moscow i was immediately swarmed by kids, by youth and young adults who wanted to buy my jeans. this happened to any american who showed up. >> i sold my nikes in the red square. >> i got a soldiers uniform in exchange for it. >> this is, you say, what

brought the wall down, know the our guns. in you look revolution, you see people over decades walking away from the eyed ideoy and you see it in the documents in the commune necessary regime, saying it themselves if we continue to allow western popular culture in, our people will want to leave. >> john: it reminds me of the wendy's commercial that ran in the 1980's. let's take a look. >> it's next year. very nice. having no choice is no fun. that's why at wendy's every hamburger isn't dressed the

same you'll get your choice of toppings. >> john: people want choices. >> they want choiced, the freedom, the freedom to indulge in pleasures and desires. >> john: thank you, thaddeus russell. you should know his book "a renegade history" is filled with history's untold stories, many like those. next, famous pornographer who save the sleaze of hustler, america was shaped by our sex lives. that's next. woman: saving for our child's college fund was getting expensive. man: yes it was. so to save some money, we taught our 5 year old how to dunk. woman: scholarship! woman: honey go get him. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

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>> when i think of sex magazines, i think playboy, penthouse and hustler. well, this is a show about history so let's do some history here. playboy was first. then came penthouse for those who thought play way was too tame. and hustler for people who thought penthouse was too tame and the man who brought

hustler into the world was larry i flint and said millions selling pictures of naked women. he's a passionate defender of free speech. he was shot by someone because of someone was mad about an interracial picture. and we're talking sex in history. larry and columbia prefer dr. david eyesen back, "one nation under sex", how the presidents, first ladies and their lovers changed history. come along. larry, sex lives make that much difference? >> ironically they did and they used the information to campaign against one another and one another damage so nothing has really changed. >> john: and it's reported about much because in those

days, people liked to hush that up. >> i'm astonishing took us almost 200 years to find out that thomas jefferson fathered six children by his slave girl, sally hemmings. we weren't able to establish that until dna in 1998. so, there's a lo the of history out there, which historians looked the other way and just didn't get reported. >> john: all right. you two aren't looking the other way. what are some examples? you say sex shaped history? that's a big claim. >> that's right. it's a claim that has been ignored by historians traditionally, they never sort of want to touch the personal lives of the presidents. >> john: tawdry. >> presidential, they missed a major component of the story of america, that is that the private lives of the presidents and first ladies did shape how things went. for example the civil war. >> john: you say that james

buchanan's gay love affair helped cause the civil war. >> that's right part of the story. james buchanan arrives in washington, a young congressman from lancaster, pennsylvania. a heavy abolitionist portion of the country. >> john: he wants to abolish slavery. >> he's there, politically ambitious and comes under the wing and tutelage of senator refuse king, a slave owner from alabama and two of them fall in love and they have a 32 year long love affair. >> john: how do you know they have a love affair. >> well-known in washington d.c., people were talking about it. they were known at the time as siamese twins, they were always together. >> john: might have been friends. not according to the letters of their contemporary or according to their letters. >> john: now you have what they were saying. >> to each other and having lovers tiffs and are they jealous of each other and it's all there, but historians have chosen to ignore it. the problem with that is william rufus kings

indoctrinenate james buchanan, the institution of slavery in the fabric of america. >> john: and jams slaves are happy. >> happy and james buchanan takes the notions into the mrel life and presidency and when the southern states start to secede he refuses to use his power as commander in chief to crack down, had he done that he might not have left half a country when lynn come comes along and we could have avoided the war that cost 600,000 american lives. >> john: before that, you say that ben franklin's promi promiscuity asaved the revolution. >> in 1776 when they are looking for someone to send over to france to get support for the american revolution, they choose a man who has the capacity to win over the lady and wasn't squeamish about the

french sexual more rays. >> john: larry, add to this. >> he had written pieces on the attributes of making love to older women, things like this. i mean, so. >> john: he wrote a paper about-- yes. >> john: sort of a dissertation why to get an older lover. this was well-known and the continental congress said this is the guy to go over to france and infamous and americanized for sexual promiscuity, a 70-year-old ladies man and with the french high arkey, meets the right ladies and he tries to bed and introduce him to the right ministers in the french government. >> john: the result, the french joined us. >> the french reluctant to support a revolution against a fellow monarchy, mind you, were finally won over by franklin and they support the american revolution, our revolution succeeds and they

wind up bankrupting their own government. >> john: doesn't work out well. >> kicks off their own revolution and franklin seduces himself into two revolutions. >> john: elinore roosevelt became a feminist because of her lesbian lover. >> she catches hem with an affair and goes off on her personal odyssey and carri carries-other own affairs and they're the ones that introduced her to women's rights. before that she was against suffrage and they convince h her, no, no. >> john: how do we know this now. >> diaries that come up and

they consider this is their personal lives. >> john: j. edgar hoover secretly taped martin luther king, he did this because john f. kennedy saw prostitutes. >> he did this because hoover caught jfk, having a fling, if you will, with a prostitute from east germany, that the fbi alleged, indicated she was an east german spy. so hoover could destroy kennedy. >> john: kennedy was terrified. >> in fact, the fbi leaks this to senator whispering willy williams of delaware, determined to tear down kennedy by exposing this affair and the kennedys turned to j. edgar hoover. fortunately for them he had sex files on every congressman, senator, everybody who was anybody. >> he wrote that washington at the time was a cesspool of sex and sexual blackmail.

>> that's right, because hoover used the sex files to basically create a government within the government. he brings in the heads of the senate, shows them the sex files on all of their colleagues and they say no more investigation into this east german spy mistress. but hoover wanted in return for that, one his reappointment as fbi director. >> john: which he got. >> number two, foreclosure authorization to bug martin luther king which he used after getting martin luther king having affairs to persecute king. >> john: and the dole scandal, you don't remember i'm sure. but warren hardings sex life caused it. >> and one of many scandals in the hardy administration, a very corrupt administration in the history of american politics. well, the origins of this go back to when harding is running for president of the united states.

the party bosses, the republican party bosses are told by harding, well, i've got all of these mistresses we need to keep quiet so they need some money and we need to pay off these women to keep them quiet among other women. >> so they did. >> the republican party creates a slush fund so they can guy can get elected president. the men want a return on-- >> once the corruption is going. >> they want the cash back. >> they got oil from the teapot dome. >> there it is. >> so today's sex scandals, schwarzenegger, bill clinton nothing new. >> nothing new, kind of pale in comparisons from the early republic all the way through the 20th century. >> john: thank you, larry flynt and david eyesenback. more mysteries when we come back. service was very moving, wasn't it?

yes, it was. i'm so glad we could be here for larry. at a time like this, friends and family matter most. even preparing this lunch is a help, emotionally and financially. mm, it's true. i was surprised to hear there was no life insurance. funerals are so expensive. i hope larry can afford it. i know. that's why i'm glad i got a policy through the colonial penn program. it gives me peace of mind to know i can help my family with some of those expenses. you know, i've been shopping for life insurance. do you think they have coverage for me, something that would fit into my budget?

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about a plan that meets your needs. they're waiting to hear from you, so call now. i've put this off long enough. i'm definitely gonna call about the colonial penn program. >> many americans know so little about history. a poll asked people what country did the united states declare independence from? 26% were not sure. that's a problem. but another problem is that what people think they do know is often wrong and plenty of examples of that in the book. the believing brain from ghosts and gods and conspiracy. is new book from science

historians, michael sherman. we're talking history myths so what are some. >> one of the myths is that history unfolds in a beautiful coordinated lock step logical fashion which only makes sense after the fact, hindsight. after the event you can look back and trace the causal chain. why didn't bush act on that august 9th memo that condoleezza rice got that al-qaeda will strike on united states soil? well, because that was one of about 2000 pieces of information that came to the state department that summer. >> john: you hear about that one. we remember the hits, forget the misses and noted the event after the fact not before. hft is chaotic, it's coincidental and weird things happen. and triggered the fuhrs world war. a serbian nationalist who wanted independence from austrian hungary empire and he

was going to serbia to give a speech. nothing went right. one guy didn't get the right weapon. another guy chickened out. a third guy missed and fourth guy gun jammed and fifth guy threw the grenade, it bounced off the car in front of it, went under the car behind them and blew up. went to the hospital and same boulevard. the last asass sin is sitting on the curb and thank you, shoots him. that's how history really unfolds. it's chaotic, contingent. after the fact we try to find a secret, hidden organization there. >> john: the sub title. how to reinforce them. >> our beliefs come first and reasons for beliefs come second. how we were raise: teachers and mentors and so forth shaep our beliefs and after the fact we go in search

of evidence to support them. >> john: it's a myth that the founding fathers were believing christians. i thought they were. >> in a way they're sort of liberal christians, a general belief in a creator nothing like modern evangelical christians who would like to back into history modern beliefs about christianity. that's another myth that the founding fathers were like us modern evangelicals. >> john: how do we know that's not the case. >> we have their diaries and letters. >> john: in god we trust has been in the currency since the 1850's. >> our founders were in fact scientists, natural philosophers, they practiced science and talked about the american experiment with democracy, it's like a scientific experiment. where they said, look, we don't know how to govern, nobody does. let's set it up in a way can constantly change the experiment. elections. every hour years, throw the bums out and bring new bums

in, and tax stem and science works that way. we run an experiment, collect data, rerun it, tweak the variables because we don't know the truth. nobody does with a capital t, truth. we try to understand how the world works. so i really think that democracy and science are pretty closely related in that sense. >> john: i should tell the audience you're wearing a pin called skeptic, he runs a magazine called skeptics and i have stolen stories from. >> that's why we're here. >> john: another myth you say, that humans years ago, native peoples were just naturally peace loving and lived in eco harmony with the environment and europeans came and corrupted them. >> this is a historical myth,

if you believe that people leafed lived in piece it means that we're peaceful and loving and altruistic and we have a dark side brought by the evils of western civilization. a great myth around sips the decades. archeologically we know long before the europeans came to america, the native tribes were tribal and war-like, way more than the europeans. the percentage of males was higher than even in the 20th century. we have artifacts and arrowhead spears inside human skeletons, kld killed each other. we deforestation before the europeans came here. they were destroying the environment because they 0 do what people do, we expand out and use resources and before we understood the long-term consequences of that. that's a what people do.

they're like us, not noble savages, that's a myth that has political implementation, if you believe that, you'll socially engineering, we can end crime by taxing more and giving more to the poor we know at that poverty leads to criminality. no, we know there are a whole other set of causes, you have to understand there's some human nature to us. >> john: thank you, michael. coming up i'll tell you about my take on the biggest myth of history.

>> to me, the biggest most destructive myth about history and what has historically made life good for people or bad for people is the idea if we are to prosper, government must make smart plans for us. and of course, it must plan the economy. this is what i was taught in college and despite the failure of the soviet union, many government leaders still believe that's true. some years ago i went to india and interviewed calcutta's political boss, he was a socialist and his party was charged with that part of india for years, despite the poverty and dysfunction he should have seen all around

him. he still said the free market and american capitalism are no good. >> better than capitalism? >> he is a political boss of part of india i visited. socialists have been in charge for years, it's not surprising this is the poorest part of the country. >> calcutta is poor because of your stupid policy. >> no. this is the-- not gone down. >> socialism just works better. >> a hundred times. >> that interview obviously was done years ago. he and his party continue to rule and plan for another dozen years. only this may, after indian voters finally got upset watching businesses and jobs flee to other parts of india, did they vote the socialist government out overwhelmingly, good for them, but the socialist rule for decades because central planning makes sense to people. life is complex, we can't pay attention to everything, we

have lives, we're busy, our intuition tells us, someone should be in charge. what would the economy be like if no one was in charge? well, it would be pretty good, actually. apparently, better than one that is centrally planned. look at this list of countries. these places are centrally planned, the nations at the bottom of the index of economic freedom, a country's ranking depends on things like rule of law, is your person and property secure? is the country relatively free from corruption? what's the level of government spending in relation to the full economy? do they have labor freedom? are you free to hire and fire people? are workers free to change jobs? it's no coincidence that the countries with the least economic freedom are the worst places in the world to live. they're not only not free, they're poor. now, look at the countries on

top of the economic freedom list, the united states has fallen to 9th unfortunately behind canada and fell mostly because of our increased regulation, increased government spending and guarantees for things like housing. at the top of the list is hong kong. what does it take to be ranked the most economically free? well, they have no taxes and as i learned when i went from for abc, they make it easy being an entrepreneur. when i handed in one form. the next day i was running my own business, stossel enterprises. even dumb ideas is what made hong kong thrive. they've thrived and have few natural resources, hong kong is just a rock in the middle of the ocean. don't have democracy, they were ruled by the british for years and the communist

chinese is now in charge. most brits and chinese largely left hong kong alone and left alone, free people make themselves rich. an amazing story in just 50 years went from horrible poverty to income levels that are among the highest in the world. prosperity, thanks to economic freedom. we should try that here. that's our show for tonight. good night. the nascar natio, i know pleasing fans is a top priority, 'cause without the fans, there'd be no nascar. just like if it weren't for customers, there'd be no nationwide. that's why they serve their customers' needs, not shareholder profits. because as a mutual, nationwide doesn't report to wall street, they report to their customers.

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